From the Papers: James A. Neal—“A Healer such as I have long waited”

The Mary Baker Eddy Papers provides public access to letters and documents that shed light on Mary Baker Eddy’s life—as well as the lives of her students and others who became Christian Scientists. Many gave of their talents in support of the organizations she founded to promote and sustain her teachings. Christian healing is a prominent thread running through these documents.

Eddy’s correspondence with James Arthur Neal (1866–1930) illustrates one man’s exceptional capacities as both a church worker and spiritual healer. Born in Bedford, Indiana, he first encountered Eddy’s new religion at the age of 20, when he worked for banker Joseph Armstrong, as a cashier in Irving, Kansas. Armstrong’s wife, Mary E. Armstrong, had been healed through the prayers of Fannie E.W. Wilkins, a local Christian Science practitioner.¹ After learning more about Christian Science from the two women, Neal became interested.

Two years later in 1888 he took a class in Christian Science from Janet T. Colman in Wichita, Kansas. He also left his bank job. The following year he studied with Eddy at her Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston² and soon became an effective healer, whose practice took him to several areas of the Midwest, including Nebraska and Ohio. Among the healings recounted in his reminiscences were those of cancer, tuberculosis, a skull fracture, mental illness, blindness, and deafness.³

Neal joined The Mother Church on December 31, 1892, and moved to Boston. On December 3, 1903 he married Mary M. Neal (b. Metcalf) in Newton, Massachusetts.

Although Neal’s early letters to Eddy make little reference to his practice, she seems to have become aware of his outstanding healing work nonetheless. She also recognized in him qualities of character and abilities that would enable him to be of service to her rapidly expanding church. For example, at her request, on January 1, 1893 he joined the Christian Science Publishing Society to help in publishing her writings.⁴ In 1898 he became a trustee of the Society, serving alongside his friend Thomas W. Hatten; in her correspondence Eddy would sometimes refer to them as her “good boys.”⁵

Numerous letters between Neal, Eddy, and her secretary Calvin Frye reference different positions he held in the Christian Science movement. After Eddy’s passing in 1910, Neal continued filling a number of important positions, including years of service on the Christian Science Board of Directors from 1912 to 1929.

Neal also responded to Eddy’s requests for various personal items she needed. On various occasions he would procure clothing, carpet, paint, and even horses. She often sent him warm and appreciative thank-you notes for such services. After receiving a span of two horses he had purchased for her, she wrote this on November 18, 1898:

Words are quite inadequate to speak for ones heart

 

The horses are here and already dear tho’ I’ve not had time to see them yet but will tomorrow. I thank you who remembered me in my need and so carefully sought and have no doubt found the span that will give me so much comfort. I expect to be an Arab in the love of my steeds.⁶

Despite Eddy’s love and respect for Neal, there was an occasion when he incurred her displeasure when she asked him to serve her temporarily as a substitute coachman. Neal apparently felt this position was beneath his dignity and abilities and lied that he was suffering from catarrh and could not do it. Eddy was angry at his lie and unwillingness to help. She dismissed him immediately, but he eventually redeemed himself and continued his service to her and to the Christian Science movement.⁷

Throughout these years, Eddy’s letters encouraged Neal to become an even more effective healer. She cautioned him not to let his other activities or interests keep him from devoting sufficient time to his healing work. For example, she wrote to him on September 19, 1895:

I want you to give your whole time and attenti attention to Christian Science. If you intend to practice and lecture as I had hoped you would you cannot divide your time with anything else and do justice to your practice. God does not demand a half of the heart but the whole heart.⁸

And again on December 26, 1896:

I have felt for a year it was not right for you to attend to aught but healing. May this Xmas and New Year be to you a great epoch in the progress of your growth and the great good you are so capable of doing and are so richly accomplishing My prayer is for your prosperity and success

 

We need good healers more than anything else to help our cause and few there are even today, thirty years since C.S. was introduced in Mass.!…⁹

The following month, Eddy sent Neal further encouragement and advice on how to become the best healer he could be. The motherly tone in this letter is indicative of many letters she sent him:

… I had felt for sometime the fitness you possessed for healing I knew it when you were a member of my College class. It looked a waste of your talents to have you in a counting room. Now, thank God, I have at least one student in Boston that promises to be a Healer such as I have long waited and hoped to see. Oh may the Love that looks on you and all guide your every thought and act up to the impersonal, spiritual model that is the only ideal — and constitutes the only scientific Healer.

 

To this glorious end I ask you to still press on, and have no other ambition or aim. A real scientific Healer is the highest position attainable in this sphere of being. Its altitude is far above a Teacher or preacher; it includs all that is divinely high and holy. Darling James, leave behind all else and strive for this great achievement. Mother sighs to see how much her students need this attainment and longs to live to see one Christian Scientist attain it….¹⁰

She continued with advice on how he should reach that goal:

… Your aid to reach this goal is spiritulization. To achieve this you must have one God, one affection, one way, one Mind. Society, flattery, popularity are temptations in your persuit of growth spiritual. Avoid them as much as in you lies. Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: “Lead me not into temptation,” ― scientifically rendered, — Leave me not to lose sight of strict purity, clean pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek, – spiritually minded. With this altitude of thought your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality and this is the state of mind that heals the sick.¹¹

Neal continued his healing work and service to the cause of Christian Science for the rest of his life. His article published in the December 1918 The Christian Science Journal, “Scientific Healing: The Christian’s Obligation,” speaks of the necessity for every student of Christian Science to practice healing and commit to the spiritualization of thought and life that bring outstanding results It reads in part:

[Christian Science] shows on Scriptural authority that the ability to heal the sick is a God-given ability, belonging equally to each and every one of His children; that it is the natural function of His child to express the healing power of divine Principle; and that it is only through this expression that man can present the “signs following” that Jesus demanded. Sincere Christian Scientists are daily claiming this God-given quality and utilizing it as earnestly and persistently as they are claiming and utilizing the God-given qualities of honesty, goodness, purity, meekness, obedience, and so on….¹²

Reading the extensive correspondence between Eddy and Neal, one gains the overall impression that she approached her relationship with him as a teacher, encouraging him to reach the heights of healing. She also discussed with him technicalities of his work in various positions in the Christian Science movement. Those things she did with a motherly affection for a talented “son,” who became not only an outstanding healer but also won her appreciation and gratitude for outstanding service in numerous ways.

We will continue to make more correspondence between Neal and Eddy available on the Mary Baker Eddy Papers website.

Please note: Quoted references in our “From the Papers” article series reflect the original documents. For this reason they may include spelling mistakes and edits made by the authors. In instances where a mark or edit is not easily represented in quoted text, an omission or insertion may be made silently.